


they happen because of you

by NoItsBecky_127



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Anti-Sokovia Accords, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Bilingual Peter Parker, Civil War Team Captain America, F/F, Female Peter Parker, Gen, I have no idea what I’m doing, Italian Peter Parker, Jewish Peter Parker, Making This Up As I Go, Misogyny, Not Team Iron Man Friendly, Not Tony Stark Friendly, Peter Parker Has Anxiety, Peter Parker Has Issues, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is a Mess, Peter Speaks Italian, Peter is Trying, Sexism, Sleep Deprivation, Sleep Deprived Peter, Vines, anti tony stark, gen z humor, gratuitous usage of yiddish, not a ton but it gets discussed, penny has exactly one (1) brain cell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 17:03:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19891297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoItsBecky_127/pseuds/NoItsBecky_127
Summary: Penny Parker is just trying to pass ninth grade, figure out whether or not Liz Allan likes girls, help people, and keep her secret identity intact. It’s a tall order, yeah, but she’s managing—that is, until the UN throws a monkey wrench into it in the form of the Sokovia Accords. Sokovia, as in the country that was decimated during the Avengers’ battle with Ultron.Penny is not an Avenger—far from it, really. She shouldn’t be involved in this, but the UN decided they needed to regulate all enhanced people and mutants, and that includes everyday Queens vigilantes. What Penny wants to fight back, to be able to be a vigilante without breaking international law, but there’s nothing one teenager can do against the will of 117 countries. So things are looking pretty hopeless…until, after a showdown on Coney Island, she catches the attention of someone unexpected.





	they happen because of you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter rewritten 12/29/19. (29/12/19 for non-Americans)

_“The entirety of the Sokovia Accords cannot currently be accessed by the public. At the moment, it is known that they are a document meant to regulate enhanced individuals and mutants, namely the Avengers, but those who are enhanced or mutants and not affiliated with them will still be held to the Accords.”_

Penny switches off the TV. She’s seen enough.

“Crazy, isn’t it?” May says from where she sits, doing the crossword.

“Yeah.” Penny nods. How can this be happening? “Yeah, it really is.”

“Turn the TV back on, let’s see what details we can get.”

“I’ll just Google it,” she responds smoothly, picking up her phone. She can’t stand to _watch_ this. “What do we want to know?”

May shrugs. “Whatever info is available, I guess. It’s probably not much, so just search ‘sokovia accords’ and see what comes up.”

Penny nods. “On it.” She types the words into Google with shaking fingers. Shaking? Her hands are shaking. When did her hands start shaking?

“Here’s what we know about the Sokovia Accords as of today,” Penny reads from the most recent article she can find. “They’re a response to the events in Sokovia last year, and to the recent battle in Lagos.” She grimaces, thinking of how the news was doing nothing but bashing Wanda Maximoff for days afterward. _They just want someone to blame_ , she remembers Michelle saying. “While we don’t know the specifics of the document, we do know the basic idea. Enhanced people and mutants will be put on a registry run by the UN security council, and will only fight when the UN gives them the ok. They will give fingerprints and DNA samples to the security council, and those with innate abilities,” _that’s me_ , “will be given tracking bracelets to wear at all times. Anyone who violates the Accords will be detained indefinitely. An enhanced person or mutant who is determined to be dangerously powerful can also be detained indefinitely.” The paragraph stops there.

“… _wow_ ,” May says after a moment. “That’s…certainly a lot.”

Penny can only nod, because it’s hard to breathe all of a sudden. It’s hard to breathe? Why can’t she breathe? And why are her hands still shaking, and her heart’s pounding all of a sudden, and _oh fuck she’s having a panic attack_.

“I should go do homework,” Penny blurts out as an excuse, she’s not sure if it’s any good or not but May _cannot_ see her having a panic attack, besides it doesn’t matter because she can’t hear May’s response over the pounding of her heart. She stumbles into her bedroom, barely managing to slam the door behind her before she has to brace herself against the wall to stop herself from collapsing.

She can’t be Spider-Man anymore. They’re going to make her reveal her identity. If she does something, anything, wrong she’ll go to prison. She’ll be arrested if she keeps doing this, but she can’t just abandon Queens.

 _Arrested_. God, Spider-Man is _illegal_. Penny’s always been careful to stay within what’s legal in the US, but now that’s _nothing_. Hell, her very _existence_ is illegal unless she hands over her identity and DNA to the UN and lets them track her 24/7, and how can she live that kind of life? Even if she can find a way to make that work, who’s to say they won’t determine someone who can climb walls, lift thousands of pounds, and listen to a conversation on the other side of a building to be enough of a threat to warrant locking up? She can’t go to prison. She’s only fourteen, she’s got her whole life ahead of her, she needs to protect Queens and _she can’t go to jail._

Her hands still haven’t stopped shaking and she’s positive the room is closing in on her. It has to be, because why else would it be so suffocating? She still can’t breathe, and her heart is still pounding, and Penny distantly wonders if maybe it’ll just beat harder and faster until it just gives out and then she’ll be no more. Or maybe she’ll suffocate first, and wouldn’t that be ironic? She fights criminals on the daily, and it’ll be random asphyxiation that gets her.

She’s going to have to tell May. She’s going to have to tell her _everything_ , and then May will figure out she could have saved Ben and she’s going to _hate_ her—and she should, because it’s her fault May’s a widow, that they’re cutting it close paying the bills every month even though May works double shifts, that Ben is _gone._

 _Ground yourself_ , her brain reminds her. What can she feel? The wall. She can feel the wall underneath her palm, smooth, cold drywall. It’s painted blue, has been since she was seven and she first moved in. Yeah, sight. Sight’s important. She can see the aforementioned wall, her backpack (black with various feminist buttons), her math notebook (it’s gray, and it’s an absolute mess), her bed. _What can you hear?_ Fucking everything, that’s what. A lot of cars honking, and someone haggling for a necklace (they’re doing a very bad job), and a man and woman yelling at each other, and music from the Mexican restaurant across the street, and more music from the Jewish deli a block away, and even _more_ music from the Chinese place a few doors down, and every other goddamn noise in Forest Hills.

But hey, she can breathe again, and her heart doesn’t feel like it’s going to give out. So the noise takes a backseat.

Dammit, that’s the second one this week. Penny needs to get this in check, but she doesn’t know _how_.

Well, she has bigger problems than her malfunctioning brain right now. Namely, these Sokovia Accords. Time to figure out exactly what’s going on with them—and how the world’s responding.

Twitter is blowing up. The top tweet in the tag is a thread, detailing what countries aren’t supporting the Accords and offering advice for those trying to leave, and it’s getting more retweets every second. The replies are all mutants asking for money to escape their country.

After retweeting the thread in case anyone who sees her Twitter needs it, Penny forces herself to ignore those kinds of tweets. She can’t run away, she’s fourteen, broke, and asking for money would mean revealing herself.

People all around the world are talking—Penny’s using the translation tool for half the tweets. When it’s not a terrified mutant, it’s a terrified relative of a mutant, and when it’s not that, it’s someone asking what this’ll mean for their local hero.

Of course, there’s also people supporting this. Saying this’ll put mutants in check, that they’re too powerful, it’s only right…Penny has to stop reading those tweets, because they’re tying her stomach into knots.

There are a decent amount of New Yorkers tweeting—which makes sense, since this is where the Avengers are based, and there’s some independent heroes here, too. Penny’s heard of a few of them—Iron Fist, Power Man, Jewel, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. And then, of course, there’s people tweeting about her.

Like everything else on this topic, the tweets come in a wide variety of opinions, ranging from “ok if the un wants to arrest spidey they WILL have to get through me first” to “Hopefully these Accords will get the Spider-Menace off the streets!” Yeah, no surprise there. Public opinion of Spider-Man’s never been consistent.

It seems like quite a few people are worried about whether Spider-Man will continue showing up, though.

Penny wishes she had any more of an idea than them. Because she has no idea where to go from here.

The obvious choice is to stop. She’ll be in trouble with the UN if she continues, and they’re now legally allowed to detain her indefinitely, which isn’t all that high on her list of “ways I want to spend my summer.”

But as much as she should stop, as much as every sign is pointing to that being the best option, she _can’t._ She can’t stop being Spider-Man, not when there’s people out there committing crimes that _she_ has the power to stop.

 _When you can do the things that I can, but you don’t, and then bad things happen, they happen because of you._ Those are the words she lives by, has lived by since her uncle was shot dead by a criminal she thought she was above stopping. He’s dead because she didn’t use her powers, and she swore not to let that happen to anyone else. So she became Spider-Man, and what gives her the right to back out now?

(When she first started out, she hadn’t meant to be known as Spider- _Man._ But people saw the figure, ambiguous under the relatively baggy suit and a sports bra, and heard a somewhat gender-neutral voice spouting quips, and they thought _male_.

It seriously annoys her that that was their first instinct, but she isn’t about to correct them. For one thing, this adds an extra layer of secrecy. Anyone who goes out looking for the person behind the mask will be investigating men, of which she is clearly not one.

Another thing: Penny knows what comes with being a female superhero. She’s seen the comments Natasha Romanov gets from the Internet, and sometimes even from interviewers. She’s a trained assassin and master spy, but people still think it’s okay to talk about her like she’s an object, because she’s an attractive woman. That doesn’t happen to guys, and Penny doesn’t want it to happen to her.

There’s something so freeing about being a guy, even if it’s only when she’s crime-fighting. She’s comfortable as a girl and all, but boys don’t get told to smile when they’re just trying to get somewhere. They don’t get catcalled by guys in high school when they’re only twelve. They can walk alone at night without fearing for their life. They don’t get told they can’t pursue their dream career because _that’s not for girls, honey_. The librarian doesn’t purse his lips when they ask for chemistry books. They get to do what they want because _boys will be boys._

When she’s Spider-Man, Penny can pretend that’s how it is for her, too.)

Can they indefinitely detain a minor? She’s only fourteen—that has to go against something. Some sort of law, or rule, or _anything_.

Who is she kidding? This is 117 countries supporting this. When more than half of the UN wants something done, they can go against whatever the hell they want to do it.

She knows she has to tell May, now. Between the inevitable trip to the UN, the tracking bracelet, and the fact that they’ll send her to fight at some point, there’s no way she can lie her way out of this. But how do you tell your recently widowed (because of you) aunt that you (her fourteen-year-old niece) secretly a masked vigilante who regularly gets shot at, and that now you have to go become UN property because the Avengers (namely Tony Stark, but still) fucked everything up?

There’s no good way of doing that.

In the back of her mind, she considers just _not_ doing it. Not going to the UN, not giving her personal info or DNA samples, just completely ignoring it. But there’s no way that’ll work for long—this isn’t like avoiding the NYPD. It’s the damn UN. More than half of the world’s countries are in support of this, and they won’t hesitate to hunt her down. There’s a lot of YouTube footage of her—they may very well use some shit like voice recognition to find her, and even though she deepens her voice somewhat for the whole “guy” thing, they could find her eventually.

She can’t win.

Her phone’s buzzing snaps her back to reality. She picks it up to see a text from Ned.

**dude did you see the news????**

_the sokovia accords?_

**yeah it’s insane!!!!**

God, if he only knew just how insane it really is.

_no kidding_

**i mean how are superheroes gonna be superheroes if they gotta wait for a whole mess of paperwork first**

_EXACTLY_

_it’ll be like “yeah we know there’s aliens destroying the world rn but we gotta wait for the approval of 30 more countries before you can go kill them”_

**feels like a disaster waiting to happen**

_it’s gonna happen soon_

**yeah prolly**

She wishes she could at least tell Ned the truth, tell him that this isn’t just current events for her—it’s her life. He’s been her best friend since sixth grade, and he knows stuff even May doesn’t, but he can’t know this—it’s the sort of thing she can’t really tell anyone without putting them at risk. Plenty of people don’t like Spidey. 

But he’ll know now, too.

She can’t think about this anymore, or she’ll have another anxiety attack.

 _cya tomorrow_ , she types, switching off her phone. Time to think about literally _anything_ else.

There’s a knock at her door. _Shit._ That must be May—she’s probably worried, after Penny ran off like that. “Come in,” she says after assuming a spot on her bed, and May does.

“Hey,” May says, voice soft, and she sits on the bed next to Penny. “Everything okay, honey?”

Penny nods. “Yeah. I’m fine. Why?” She’s good at playing dumb. Considering everything she’s lying about, it’s kind of a necessity.

“Well, because you ran out of the room, unprompted, and you didn’t seem to be in the best frame of mind. I’d say that’s cause for concern.”

She shakes her head. “It’s nothing, May, really. Just…remembered I had to finish my math.” Not her flimsiest excuse yet, so that’s something.

May seems to accept this as an answer. “Okay, _tesoro._ ” The Italian pet name makes Penny smile, just a little. “But you know you can talk to me about anything, right?” Oh, nevermind. That’s May for ‘I’m pretty sure you’re BSing me but I don’t know how to get you to admit it.’

“Yeah. Of course.” Penny nods, even though it’s not true. She’s more secrets than not, these days. Like that she’s Spider-Man, and that it’s her fault Ben is gone, and that she was lying about not needing meds anymore, and oh, by the way, in case all this wasn’t enough, she’s a lesbian, too. And those are just the initial lies—never mind all the smaller ones she’s had to tell to support them.

“I should finish my homework.” It’s not a lie—she _does_ still have to do that math. But more importantly, she has to end this conversation before she breaks down and confesses something, or everything.

“Alright, honey.” May stands to leave. “Don’t stay up too late, okay?”

“Yep.” God, when was the last time she got a healthy amount of sleep? “ _Ti amo_ , May.”

“ _Ti amo_.” May leaves the room, and Penny is alone once more.

She unzips her backpack, pulls out her math textbook, and opens up the notebook. She has 30 geometry questions and those things don’t do themselves.

* * *

Penny doesn’t get much sleep that night.

She’s already sleep-deprived, given that her double life is that of an overachieving student at an intense STEM school and a teenage vigilante, but add some good old fear for her life and well-being into the mix to combine with her haywire anxiety, and she lies there for a good two or three hours thinking about the Sokovia Accords, thoughts going in circles over and over and over.

When she finally passes out at around 2:30 AM from sheer exhaustion, it’s for a fitful, four-hour sleep, because her alarm dutifully goes off at 6:30 in the morning to remind her that yes, there is school today.

The fact that the UN is trying to make her its property does nothing for the fact that she still has to go to school, and even if she didn’t she needs to not think about everything right now, so she hops out of bed, gets dressed, and begins the weekday morning routine.

There's a note on the counter from May. _Had to cover Yuki’s early morning shift today. See you tonight, love you! <3_

There’s already some coffee made (God bless her aunt), so Penny pours herself a cup and puts a frankly ridiculous amount of milk and sugar into it (she can’t stand the taste of coffee but she needs caffeine desperately). She’s lucky enough that her metabolism doesn’t negate the caffeine boost—just makes her crash faster.

Too bad it doesn’t do that for other chemicals.

Whatever. It’s fine. She’s got bigger fish to fry now, anyways.

Once she’s had her coffee, Penny puts in her earbuds, picks up her backpack, and heads out the door.

The kids at school are, like the Internet, focused on one thing only. Teachers have to repeatedly calm everyone down throughout the day, and the social studies lesson is completely derailed to talk about the Accords (Mr. O'Malley tries to justify it by saying it's current events, but Penny can tell he's frustrated, which makes sense, considering they have a test on Eastern Europe in two days and all anyone wants to talk about is the Sokovia Accords). Being from Queens, a lot of people are talking about Spider-Man.

Flash doesn't even yell any insults at her that day, which says a lot for the atmosphere of the school.

At lunch, Ned's going a mile a minute, just like her brain has been since she saw the news. She doesn't have the energy to rant, so she just interjects appropriate, short answers whenever he wants a response.

Of course, Ned’s not stupid, so this lasts about five minutes before he realizes something's wrong.

"What's up, dude? You're not saying anything."

Penny shakes her head. "It's nothing. I'm just tired." Not a lie. The caffeine boost has mostly worn off, and she’s crashing. Hard. "Didn't get much sleep last night. But I mean, who did?”

Ned gives a sympathetic nod. "Fair point. I’ll send you today’s notes later if you need them.”

"Thanks, man." Thank God for her best friend.

* * *

By some miracle, she manages to stay awake for the rest of the day. Once she’s out of school, she's got one priority: patrolling. The Accords will be ratified in three days, so she's got three days left before it's not safe, and goddamn if she's not going to use them. May texted that she would be home around 6:45, giving Penny a good 3 and a half hours of patrol before she has to get home. So it's time to utilize those hours.

After grabbing an iced coffee from Delmar’s as fuel (she’s a regular, so he knows how she likes it), Penny sneaks into an alley, suits up, leaves her backpack on a roof (she used to try webbing them to walls but the fluid doesn’t last long enough), and begins her patrol.

Today's one of those days where she's helping people with less time-sensitive issues, like lost tourists (thank God she's fluent in Italian) and crying children who've lost their toys (how it wound up in the tree, she'll never know.) The most serious things she sees are some pickpocketers and a woman stealing makeup from a pharmacy. But she still makes the most of it, because she's helping Queens. And she won't be able to do that much longer on the level she is-the UN probably doesn't exactly consider street-level vigilantism to be a worthy use of time-so she has to do everything she can now.

A few people ask her what she's going to do about the Accords. She gives a series of vague answers, since she's not about to admit she has no idea.

"I just go with the _swing_ of things, y’know?”

"They haven't arrested me yet!"

"Only time will tell!"

And several more. Hopefully no one deduces that she's clueless.

When she climbs back into the apartment through her bedroom window, it’s 6:32–just in time. She quickly stashes away the suit and shooters, changing back into her normal clothes and taking out her homework. The door opens and May enters a few minutes after.

Penny pokes her head out her door. "Hi, May."

"Hey, Penny. How're you doing?" May asks.

"Good." She's not good.

"Good, good. How was school?"

"Fine."

"But?"

"No buts."

"Alright. You hungry?”

“Kinda.” She really isn’t—a rarity, these days—but May will get concerned if she says that.

May nods. “Chinese sound good?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. Wonton, or hot and sour?”

Penny shrugs. “Either one works.”

“Okay, I’ll get hot and sour. I’ll let you know when the food gets here.”

"Great. Thanks." Penny returns to solitude.

She should do her homework, but, in typical stressed-teenager fashion, she doesn’t. Instead, she turns on her phone, searching for more news about the Accords.

She gets it. Apparently Tony Stark made a statement about his views on the Accords, and just about every website’s published an article of some sort about it. 

There's a video of it, because when is this man not on camera? It seems to have been taken in the midst of a press conference. Penny skips over most of it, only stopping at the time stamp the article gave.

"Enhanced people need to be put in check," Tony says in the video. "The Sokovia Accords are a method of doing that. No one with the abilities some enhanced people and mutants have should be allowed to go uncontrolled, because we've all seen the damage that can be done. If you’re enhanced or a mutant and you aren’t planning on following the Accords, I suggest that you reexamine your priorities.”

The video cuts off there, and Penny feels the last hope she had that maybe Tony Stark was a good guy shatter.

God, where’s the man get off, talking like that? He's not even enhanced. He has a fancy suit, and more importantly, enough money and privilege to avoid consequences.

She remembers seeing that interview, back in 2008. The one where he announced to the world that he was Iron Man. She remembers thinking that he was the coolest person alive, that he was just like Batman.

So yeah, Penny looked up to the guy for years. But the fact is, she’s not an idiot. This hope’s been hanging by a thread for months now. She’s seen issues for a while—the way he talks to and about women. His complete lack of effort to do anything to help the countries that've had countless Stark bombs dropped on them. The way he didn’t even _care_ about the damage his bombs did until non-Americans had them. Still, she’s always tried to hold on to her faith in him, because this was Tony Stark. He couldn't be bad.

But this? This is it. This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Except it’s less like a straw and more like a steel rod.

What gives him the right to talk about the damage done? Didn't he _make_ Ultron? Penny’s fairly certain that got mentioned a while back—of course, the media glossed over it. Besides, it’s not like sitting there and letting yourself be destroyed is a better option than fighting back in a situation like the one last year, or in 2012 in Manhattan.

 _Reexamine your priorities_. “How about _you_ reexamine them?” Penny hisses at her phone. So she doesn’t want to be under the UN’s thumb. That’s not exactly a moral failing.

At the end of the day, though, it all boils down to one thing— _why does this involve me?_ Not her specifically, but people _like_ her. Mutants and enhanced people who aren’t Avengers. These Accords were a response to something _they_ did—why does she have to be dragged into it?

She doesn't know how to answer any of these questions, and she hates it. Everything is wrong. Her vigilante alter-ego is illegal worldwide, and her idol sees nothing wrong with it. The UN wants to control her. Things are falling to pieces, and she just wishes she had someone she could talk to.

But no one even knows she's Spider-Man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Most of this was written at midnight.


End file.
